256 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Kochester collectors used to take large numbers of these varieties 

 everywhere on the chalk hills between Rochester and Maidstone, 

 and that it occurs through North Kent almost to Gravesend ? 

 Mr. Sabine (Entom. 181), as Mr. Tutt points out, in fact 

 demolishes the whole theory when he asks, why do not these 

 unions occur elsewhere also ? 



In my own experiences in the Folkestone and Dover district 

 during the past twenty-five years, although I have so con- 

 stantly seen L. coryclon, L. icarns, L. hellargus and L. medon 

 flying together that it may be regarded as the normal state of 

 affairs, yet I have never known any of these species in copula 

 with others, nor seen any specimen out of the many thousands 

 that have passed through my hands which could reasonably be 

 regarded as hybrid or mongrel, whatever the latter word may 

 mean ; I cannot help, therefore, thinking that the theory, not 

 the genus Lyccena, has got a trifle mixed. 



Boisduval, in his Monograph of the Zyg^nidae, — another 

 group of closely allied species, — mentioning instances of crossing 

 between certain allied species of Zygsense, states that never 

 had he known fertile eggs result from such unions. Such is, 

 I am sure, the experience of us all with Lepidoptera in a 

 wild state. 



In a previous paper (Entom. xix. 6), Mr. South has told us 

 that L. argiades has continued to exist in England since the 

 middle post-glacial epoch. I entirely disagree with him. To 

 suppose that a conspicuous diurnal insect has escaped detection 

 in England for even the last thirty years is a proposition so 

 startling that it requires more than the enunciation of a ready- 

 made theory to enable us to believe it, particularly in these days 

 when the introduction of a species, accidentally or otherwise, is 

 no difficult matter. 



There is another point in Mr. South's papers which should 

 not pass unnoticed. He states (Entom. 125) that, so far as 

 Great Britain is concerned, L. icarus, coming from North-west 

 Europe at a time when our islands were united with the 

 Continent, came first into Scotland, extending thence through 

 the Scottish Islands to Ireland, subsequently appearing in 

 England via France. Is not this really the merest surmise ? 

 Can he adduce any proof whatever that Great Britain, in days 

 when our lepidopterous fauna existed, was connected with North- 



